Perhaps inevitably, now that the dust of conflict fromthe bush war in Rhodesia has settled, stories of heroism,hardship and suffering will begin to emerge. Alan Thrush hascreated a remarkable work, suffused as it is with personalexperience, to a degree that writing it may have been almostcathartic.

Perched in the chair outside the door with a wooden baseball bat in his hand sat Alan Thrush. Thrush wore taut fatigues and over- sized aviator glasses, and had a nine-millimeter gun strapped to his side. I could smell wet tobacco. Thrush’s jaw had an uneven jut that suggested some kind of shrapnel incident. This was a man who had stuck his chin out too many times. “Thrush here is in charge of security, Mr. Leed. Thrush, Mr. Leed here is being granted second-class access.”